As well as being a rant from the pit of Gainsberg's brain, Howl is also an admission that these problems and people do exist. That not everyone has the 4 bedroom house with white picket fence, if anybody does at all. He incites his own ignorance and prejudice whilst exposing others. He admits the culture of these different people from drugs to sex to deprivation.
The start of the poem is clearly about drug and mental issues, “minds destroyed” and “angry fix”. Was he talking of the person he dedicated the poem to. Carl Soloman. One thing I have noticed from Gainsberg's poems is that he starts his poems with what's on his mind and then elaborates form there. Its because of this that I feel the start of the poem is about Carl and other friends of his. This is clear further to the end of the poem when he writes “ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you're really in the total animal soup of time “. The poem shows his frustration of the destruction of his generation that's being suppressed by conforming America and, taking from the title howl, making him and others go crazy. One of the people Gainsberg is talking about could be heard howling at the moon when it is full or at least that's how the “normal” American would think of them. Howl is a view of lives of Gainsberg, his friends and acquaintances. Those that are close to him and those that are in the same dark jazz bars for different reasons. So why were these people the “best minds of my generation”? Well I think it was because they were able to do what they wanted. They could think outside the conformist American box and see an open world that has no boundaries. Something that Gainsberg strived to do, he respected them highly and even looked up to them.
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